Donald Trump's Climate Change Denial Ignites the Grass Roots

Let's be clear, though: Thanks to the efforts of the ever-expanding Climate Alliance - a bipartisan group of state governors, cities mayors, and business CEOs across the nation - it's not America that's pulling out of the Paris agreement, it's just the Trump administration.

Brown is serving as a special adviser to states and regions at the Germany gathering, while Bloomberg was appointed a special envoy for cities and climate change in 2014 by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

California's Governor Jerry Brown and Michael Bloomberg launched the "America's Pledge" initiative to compile and quantify the actions of federal states, cities and businesses in the USA to reduce their GHG emissions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. "The American government may have pulled out of the Paris Agreement, but American society remains committed to it - and we will redouble our efforts to achieve its goals".

Over the past few days, USA federal states and other U.S. and global non-state actors announced a number of climate initiatives that aim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, and for an accelerated transition to 100% renewables. Jerry Brown and Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee - also released new "guiding principles" for its members, including recognition of the environmental and economic threats of climate change and pursuit of climate action's inherent job-creation and environmental-rehabilitation benefits.

The United Nations' chief, António Guterres, said in a statement the plan to assess how USA cities, states and others are contributing to slashing global greenhouse gas emissions was "welcome".

Last weekend, the G20 Leaders' Declaration took note of the Trump Administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, confirming that "it will immediately cease the implementation of its current nationally-determined contribution" while underscoring that "the Leaders of the other G20 members state that the Paris Agreement is irreversible".

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said the president "made America into an global laughing stock". "We're already halfway there".

From the Real News file comes a digital milestone for the United States Climate Alliance, a coalition of states committed to upholding the tenets of the Paris climate accord. The Rocky Mountain Institute and the World Resources Institute will jointly lead an inclusive analytical effort to measure emission reduction efforts by those aligned with America's Pledge. "We will talk about that in the coming period of time", Trump is quoted as saying, before reportedly shrugging his shoulders and adding: "if it happens that will be wonderful, if it doesn't that will be ok, too". It has been created to inform Americans on state actions to address climate change, providing updates on the progress made to meet the Paris Agreement targets.